


A Winter’s Tale

by Herbalina



Series: The Matter of Lara Dorren [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Aen Elle (The Witcher), Aen Seidhe (The Witcher), Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Destiny, F/F, F/M, Feminism, Historical Fantasy, Identity, Love at First Sight, M/M, Multi, Mythology References, Politics, References to Norse Religion & Lore, There will be romance, War Never Changes, and my headcanons, and truth, but also catharsis, early to high middle ages, fantasy racial conflict, many elves - Freeform, much lore, stories of women, there might be some fight scenes, there sure will be sad stuff, welcome to my obsession
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:28:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27380437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Herbalina/pseuds/Herbalina
Summary: The Gods alone know how much blood was spilled on this land in those days and how much tears were shed, so much that it would run into a river greater than the Pontar. Yet in time, the currents smoothed down the riverbed, made it twist and turn, so the channels changed, new rivers forged and kept running on and people have forgotten how it happened.I was there, and this is how it was.The legend of Lara Dorren told from the unlikely later Queen of Redania Cerro.
Relationships: Aelirenn | White Rose of Shaerrawedd/Ida Emean aep Sivney, Avallac'h | Crevan Espane aep Caomhan Macha/Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal, Cerro/Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal, Cerro/Original Character, Cerro/Vridank (The Witcher), Cregennan of Lod/Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal
Series: The Matter of Lara Dorren [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2001067
Comments: 16
Kudos: 5





	1. Prologue: Child of Winter

**Author's Note:**

> I had the first thought of this fic almost 2 years ago, but never actively worked on it since well Regis (˵ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°˵). As this sat on the backburner many things changed in my head, but one thing I kept is the *hopefully nuanced relationship between Lara Dorren and Cerro. I want to explore relationships between women and the lives of women under the framework of the Witcherverse.  
> The main point of reference as I borrow from history is 10th century England, I might have to take some liberties to make the story work as Sapkowski himself did; but also considering magic is a thing in the Witcherverse, it is possible they'd have a faster technological development.  
> I'm also working on two companion piece fics, please have a look of [ this one ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27367768)if you are interested in proses and more Aen Elle lores, or if you like a certain barber-surgeon pedantic vampire (like meee), I'm writing[a fluffy reader-insert fic ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27390238)where a student (you) is studying Applied Folklore: Introduction at King's College in witcher moderndayish Vizima, under a mysterious Professor Regis.

The Gods alone know how much blood was spilled on this land in those days and how much tears were shed, so much that it would run into a river greater than the Pontar. Yet in time, the currents smoothed down the riverbed, made it twist and turn, so the channels changed, new rivers forged and kept running on and people have forgotten how it happened.

I was there, and this is how it was.

When I was six or seven summer’s old, Modron Unna took me aside one early spring morning just after we finished our morning prayers, and beckoned me to follow her out to the courtyard, where our light grey speckled pack mule Bogda was waiting. 

Modron Unna got on Bogda and pulled me up so I sat in front of her warm, cushiony body and the three of us sauntered through the gate of our temple, down the path southwest. I recognized that we were on the path to our Lady Freya’s sacred garden, for we held holy day celebrations there, and I had proudly made myself useful on several occasions when the ceremony required a virgin so I remember the surroundings, even though that morning was early and around us, the night mist had not completely fallen off with the sunrise. 

It was a feeble sunrise, in truth. Last night’s rain still scented the air and through the wet waning mist that clung loosely to the pines and the yellow blowballs and the pussy willows had almost all but disappeared, leaving an illusion of their bare branches, brown and intricate, stretching towards the sky, where the sun was reluctant to spread its wings of pale gold, so we people still shivered in our last moments of dreams. 

Or shivered outside of our beds, in the wild, like me and Modron Unna. 

But I kept quiet and didn’t ask anything. 

I already knew where we were heading, as for what, I think even if Modron Unna was going to sacrifice me in Yimir’s cauldron for a fair harvest that day, I would still have ridden with her willingly. Among the few people I truly trusted in this world, she was one of two that can command me to cross the nine rings of fire that burns eternally over the Dragon Mountains and I would go without skipping a heartbeat. 

The other person was Lara. But that had to wait a little later. 

So that morning, we rode in the mist to the Garden of Freya, where, for the first time, I learned something about my mother.

We dismounted nine steps in front of the Garden and Modron Unna left Bogda treating herself with the lush wild grass, and we went inside. 

There were Sisters stationed in the Garden, tending, not to the trees for they were so blessed by the Goddess they never needed help from us to grow, but the local folks, who were less fortunate than the trees, were often plagued by bodily illnesses, difficulty in conceiving babies and giving them, quarrels in marriage, impossibly ungovernable children, and our priestesses would give help to those who seek it as best as their knowledge allowed them. 

When we arrived, a Sister went out and greeted us, asking if we broke fast or would like to dine with them, but Modron Unna stepped closer to her and spoke some words in a low voice. I guessed Modron Unna did not accept the invitation to breakfast from the Sister’s surprised expression and was a little disappointed, for I was a child, and hungry, but I waited. To me the nature of mystery always seemed to demand one's patience, and because the wait was long and the outcome uncertain, when things turned out to be good in the end, they seemed even better, like pears left outside in the winter, after a night’s wait and the thawing, the sweet flew right into the soul. 

I waited.

The Sister that greeted us left briefly and came back with a little wooden key. Modron Unna thanked her and took my hand, and we went eastside, passing the great hall in front of which braziers of herbs burnt to avert evil and bring in warmth, and we arrived in the back of the garden, a place I was never taken to before. Modron Unna opened the wood gate that held us in this part of the Garden, and I saw a cave.

The east end of the Garden ended here with giant rocks that towered the main hall we just passed, and the walls guarding the Garden were built around and into the rocks. This cave that grew deeper inside these boulders must be the reason that the forebears left them as they were when this place of worship was built. And I wondered what secret it held, with its gaping mouth sending out chilling drafts and creepers dangled down from the entrance’s top with their long fat leaves. Somehow it did not seem scary. 

Or maybe I _was_ scared back then. Lara told me, memory is a fickle thing for human minds. 

But whether I was scared or not, when Modron Unna beckoned me to follow her, I followed her. 

Inside, the cave seemed to expand as we went farther downwards, and I could hear the sound of running water that was hidden from sight. The only water we could see was the droplets dripped slowly down the sharp tip of strange stones hanging from the ceiling of the cave.

“This place used to be part of the Great Sea.” Modron Unna spoke to me directly for the first time that morning, her soft voice bounced around in the hollow, made it sound like it was not one Modron Unna but many that spoke to me one by one.

“That must be mighty long ago; was it?” I asked.

“Longer than any of us could remember.” She smiled at me, pleased at my response, “but not longer than the elves’ memories. Their scholars wrote that in the books, and some of the books --”

“You read?” I interrupted, unable to hold back my awe. I thought only Kings and Druids knew how to read. 

Modron Unna's smile turned to a laugh, “How do you think I know all those stories I told you?”

Well, I just thought she _knew_. To me, for all those six or seven years, she seemed to know everything. 

I shrugged. 

Modron Unna patted me tenderly on my head and looked as though she was about to say something, but stopped, sighed, and took my hand again. 

“Come, there’s something you ought to see now.”

We walked past a clump of white rocks or stones that reminded me of wax at the base of a low-burning candle, and in the next turn, we came to what seemed to be the end of the cave, a small space with smooth ground. A boat lay by the wall.

I say it’s a boat, but it did not look like any boats we had, not like faering boats commonly used by the fishermen, nor the long galleys that carried warriors out to the sea. But with its slender hull shaped a crescent of the moon lying on its side, its head and end tipped upwards in unusual contours, and they were rich with decorative patterns of things I didn’t recognize. 

I walked closer, wanting to get a better look of the strange beasts carved on the boats’ frontend, while Modron Unna crouched over the boat and pulled a piece of cloth out from under the bilge of the boat. 

She handed the cloth to me and gestured me to sit down by her on the ground. 

It was damp and very cold. 

“You were wrapped in this when we found you, on this very boat, with your mother.” She stopped and put her hands around me. 

I waited. But this time not expecting anything sweet when she spoke next. 

“She was gone, your mother. Cold. But you were alive, and crying; even kicked a little when I picked you up. And we buried your mother where the Nameless go. I will show you her grave tomorrow.”

She looked at me. 

“You are old enough now, it’s time you know where she is, so come Saovine you could keep a candle out for her.”

I didn’t know what to say. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to feel. And I didn't know if what I was feeling was the right feeling to hold. Should I feel sadder? I did wish for a mother and father of my own, but in truth how do you explain the winters to a mayfly? I did never have my own parents and Modron Unna and the priestesses were my kin. I suppose I was feeling more curious than sad back then. 

For a while, we just sat in silence, and around us, the cool drafts that came from nowhere went and went. 

I finally asked: “Is this where I came from? The cave?”

My questions put a sad smile on Modron Unna’s soft round face that fell into a time and place I couldn't have followed. “No, child. You ever seen any boats sailing in a cave?”

She brushed away a tuft of my hair clinging to my forehead in this dampness. 

“You came crushing at the shore, not far from Rock Kambi; you know where that is? I showed you last time we went beachcombing, remember? It was there we saw this boat, on it, you and your mother. A strange sight it was. We all crossed the sign of Freya just seeing it; some Sisters were too afraid to come up, imagine that! Telling me to leave it and call the guards from the village. But the tide was rising and I was worried it might take you away to the sea again. The sea god does love children.” She crossed the sign of Freya. “So I ran to the boat anyway, and a few Sisters followed me, we dragged the boat to land, and took you with us to the temple, well, the rest you know.”

“So how did the boat end up here?”

“Nobody knew what to do with it. It was a strange-looking thing; Modron Thyra - Freya rests her soul - had no idea where it might come from though she knew the looks of all ships and boats from An Hindar and Ard Skellige. We wondered if you were from some other small isles we weren’t familiar with. When a druid came from Ard Skellige for the Winternights celebration that year, we asked him, but he knew nothing about the boat we didn't already know. He said best leave this boat somewhere where the Gods’ powers are strong, so we took it here. He also said something about you. Something we all talked about in hushed tones.” Modron Unna stopped again and looked at me sympathetically.

“He told us you are half-elf.”

She gently touched my forehead, where my hair had stubbornly stuck again, and pushed them back behind my ear. 

“These ear tips, he cannot be wrong. And your eyes, too.”

I've eyes the color of Moon, later, someone would sing that to me. But back then, I just hated them. They marked me strange even in my own eyes. For three months before I learned about this, I prayed Goddess Freya would turn my eyes the color of oak bark, or maybe blue like the high sky, even the trickster Loki’s green eyes were better than mine. Because they were common eye colors on the isle. Because mine was not common at all. And because children could be very cruel sometimes to those who were different from themselves. Maybe because they were afraid?

Now I knew, I thought. They were right all along. I was not even human. Did my mother die because of me? A curse from the Gods?

Modron Unna must have seen the distress written all over my face and how my shoulders slouched, she hugged me tight and said, “You are a gift from the Gods. I think, maybe even the sea god Manawyd'an himself. There was a storm just the night before that morning you came onshore. Who could’ve survived that if he didn’t let them? And Freya led us to your path. So you were loved both by her and Manawyd’an.” 

She straightened my back and made me look in her soft, brown eyes. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The Gods favored you, so you lived. They put us in your path, so you now grow besides the Graden as one of us. And your mother must have loved you, too. Look at all the needlework she did on your baby cloth.”

She pointed the picture on the cloth to me. A very tall building. A hall, maybe? With conical tops and many windows, flowers grew under the building, around it and streamed down from the walls.

“Looks like a pretty place,” I said, sniffing.

“That’s a palace, where kings and queens live.”

Just like the boat, this palace was strange-looking. So foreign; otherworldly. Yet somehow familiar to me at the same time. A faint, spidery-webbed sense of familiarity. Some images or sound that shouldn’t have been recorded, recorded anyway. But nothing remembered made any sense. 

“How did you know she was my mother?” I suddenly thought of it. ”Was it written here on cloth? Did she put my name here too?”

Now it’s Modron Unna’s turn to remain silent for a long time. As though she was weighing a decision she could not even be sure if she had the right to make. 

I waited. In anticipation. The faint rumble of underground water echoed against the odd-looking stones, hanging, and heaped upon the ground. And the air was a chill.

Modron Unna placed her hand on my shoulder and made me look in her eyes.

“You always ask me how come you don’t get a family name like all the other children that came to the temple. You have one, I’ve been safekeeping it for you and now it’s time you get it back.”

“So what is my name? Whose daughter am I?”

“You were Cerro of The Outer Sea. Now you are old enough to remember, remember: you are Cerro, daughter of Elayne, who was the noblewoman of Shalott. Shalott fell into ruin a dozen years ago and now it is where madmen preach salvation to the seagulls. You were not born there, but in the Land of the Elves.”

I froze with my mouth gape, unable to think for a while.

Land of the Elves?

“What happened to my mother? What about my father? Were they elves? Why did I end up here?” My head was filled with questions that burned with an urgency I never experienced. Now that I was finally allowed to ask, I hungered for explanations. 

I did not know how, but I sensed she was going to say something that would change my life.

Finally, Modron Unna said, “I don’t know your whole story, but someone will come to teach you now.”

“Who?”

“When we pulled the boat, not before the tide could rise, glided over the sea fog an elf woman came to us. She told me, only me, in mindspeech, where you came from. She told me to tell you these things when you were old enough to have you hair braided and remember your own age, and she said she and you would meet soon after that. By Rock Kambi, where you came in that boat.”

“Who is she?”

“She said they call her Lara Dorren.”


	2. Cerro One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story will be told from Cerro's first-person perspective, as we go from her "current" timeline years later, to when she was young and Lara was in the center of many political whirlpools. To make it less confusing, I will title "current" timeline chapters "Cerro [Number]," they will be much less than the stories she tells of the past. It's also to make each chapters shorter as a personal preference here, I think shorter chapters would also make it more convenient for readers.  
> Thank you for joining me again, and I hope you enjoy (•ө•)♡

Tonight is a good night for jotting down stories of the past. 

In the Royal Palace, servants quietly bustle around, preparing for the Saovine feast that is to be held tomorrow night. Courtiers vie for my Lord Husband's attention as they try (mostly in vain, as I observe) to round up a few affairs before the new year comes. They should know now is the season of migration for many birds, including some of my husband's favorite games like short-tailed brant geese and black swans. They would not find his heart in the Palace. 

As the Queen of Redania, second to my Lord husband’s bed and first to bore him a son, I am writing this down on white sheepskin with quill fashioned from feathers plucked from our palace swan. I wear robes made of fine linens dyed red with the ironed soil and lined with furs of exotic animals, such are my comforts these days.

Some of the better-informed ones came to me, so I receive them by the sides of my children, their wetnurse, their tutors, and a score of my ladies-in-waiting; as I tend to my own duty, so I share my husband's. Of course, what I solve are the small matters, like quarrels between some warlords in the kingdom or grievances needed to be settled and penance paid, and I raise doubts on certain taxes collected from wealthy lands claiming to have suffered bad harvests -- my Larks told me otherwise. The bigger matters that concern war or alliances, I will have to leave to my King. Who I pray will return to the Palace from his hunting trips safe and sound.  
  
The Palace has quieted down from the commotions during the day but there is still this general sense of hurried small happiness in the air. In the long halls the candles would not sway in the chill fresh air, blackcaps scuttle around in the hornbeam trees and sing their last songs before they leave us in Tretogor for the warm south. Tonight is a windless night, and the night sky is high and bright with stars, and there is not a single strand of cloud in the sky as far as eyes can see, so nothing will hide the brilliance of the white moon as I write this tale of Lara. 

Why do I write it? Perhaps I no longer rejoice in spinning or weaving because I see little use in the shirts I made: I have more clothes I can fit in a whole room, so do my children, and my Lord Husband no longer shows any signs of approval or disapproval at what I make him, so why not use my time for something else? There are not many teachings in the worship of Freya that dictate what women must do that men don't, though my husband's Goddess Melitele thinks we must labor in love and body for our fathers, husbands, and children, so I do that. But now that my children are of age to start learning their trades of life, they have less and less time that could be spared for me. Though how precious and sweet those little time ere in these days. They are to my days as this starlit sky to night, without which the latter would be long and dark and hopeless. 

So, I drift my days warm and fine-clothed in the confines of the dignified Royal Palace of Tretogor, the heart of my husband's Kingdom. At day I grace the gardens, tend to my duties as a Queen and a mother. At night I wait for my Lord Husband to grace my chamber, should that pleases him.

It seldom does these days.

My Larks sing tales to me, so I know who might be occupying his interest and where at the moment, but I do not mind. Freya's truth. The king has been good -- and still is in his way -- to me. He summoned me to his chamber often when we first married and came to mine even more, yet inevitably it did grow less.

I say inevitably for, is that not a man's right? All the bards sing so. And this man is now a King. I knew he took his first mistress since our marriage when I was heavy with Denhard, our second-born. My Larks told me some stories of a hunting trip near Rinde, and a mere town magistrate rose mysteriously henceforth to become an intendant at the court in a month, moving his whole family to stay in Tretogor, including his golden-haired wife. She was seventeen or eighteen, I don't remember. Her husband died of lockjaw soon after moving to Tretogor, and she lost favor after Denhard was born, quickly sent away before the baby's baptism. I made sure she had her pensions accredited when she left court and sent a few rings I no longer wore after her, so she could pose an attractive widow should she choose to remarry. But I heard she had joined the Sisters of Melitele. May the Goddesses keep her well then.

I don't hold resentment against any of them. My King's love is the love of a season, a few months it passes onto someone else, a fact, I suppose, I should be grateful about: I was one of those season's love, though I bound myself to this post by an oath not made to him, and responsibility is what fuels me, not desire. 

When I was young I once heard a bard sang of how the strongest love burns but once, and I dared not to believe it, but perhaps it is true.

Although I did wonder why the King lets me keep my place as his Queen though we are husband and wife in names only for quite a few years now. He could have taken another younger and more beautiful Queen as he did with me once. 

I think he does it for the sake of Heltmult and Denhard, our dear little Princes. He does love them.

Heltmult turns thirteen come spring, yet at this young age you can already tell he would be a gentle, sensible king from the way he treats his order of "retainers:" ragged bands of stray cats and dogs he gathered from the city whenever I took him in my trips to the city Temple of Melitele, where we handed out alms -- good food, almost untouched from our royal tables -- personally to the poor. It is part show and, as Heltmult protested to me, "totally undignified mercy," but it is what we have and better than nothing at all. I hope Heltmult will find better ways to help the poor when he becomes the King. I always remind him that a king is a ship and his people the water that carries him; water can make the ship sail thousands of miles long, but it can also topple it and turn it into wreckage in fury and despair. A king should at least appear to care for his subjects if he doesn't want a rebellion on his hand, something my Lord Husband seems to forget sometimes.

Denhard is only nine and still wistful at times, but he has only started his lessons two summers ago, we are working on him. And I have confidence that with a few more years, he would be as studious a student as his brother.

Our Princess Riannon, Freya bless her, grows each day with the grace and beauty and gentleness of the moon. She is but a child now, yet everyone can see how, in time, she would grow to outshine all women of the North. With her position as the adopted daughter of the King of Redania and her beauty, Lords and Princes would beat down the gate of the Hel’s realm to claim her hand. The only worry I have is of her elven heritage. Conflicts between elf and human rise each year, a half-elf Princess bride can be prime material for the malicious opponents to goad about in palace and royal halls, hearsays bandied around among the countryfolks. To remedy that, I assembled teams of poets and traveling bards to sing of stories not only of her beauty but her virtues too, how pious and meek a soul she is blessed with, things like that. And they go on fly about and sing in the forest of Tretogor and Termria like my other Larks.

Though those songs do hold truths in them, for Riannon has a gentle soul. Her large emerald green eyes capture hearts just like her mother’s did, but unlike her mother, in her eyes overshadowed by sorrows preceding her coming to this world, is oft the melodies of the tranquility of a small stream on an early summer's day, in which life quietly and forgivingly flow. Lara's eyes were oceans that inspired awe and love as well as fear. We can sail across the oceans, draw treasures from it, giving in to the beauty of its shimmering frothed waves and the constant motion of life, we might even claim to be favored by the sea gods when we were spared from a storm; but who dares to say he has conquered the ocean?

I wonder — I think, Lara would not be very pleased with what kind of woman Riannon is becoming and it is my fault. But what am I to do? The world Lara belonged to had no limits on her, but in this world, we are all bound by rules of men. 

So at the Hour of Owl, if my husband does not come, I write.   
I write the tale of Lara Dorren, whom I knew more than most, but probably still not enough, and whom I loved above all. 


	3. Rituals of Winternights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slow update in the past few weeks, life had been a little unkind to me and to top it all one of my pet rat whom I took care of since he was a pink little bean passed away. It took me some time to readjust.  
> I want to try to update at least once in 1.5 weeks, and there should be another chapter coming out later today and one tomorrow since it's all planned out I just need to put them in words ‘-ωก̀
> 
> Vildkaarls: meaning "wild men" in Skellige jargon, a brotherhood of warriors in Ard Skellig highlands, independent of any clan. They eat what they hunt and live only to kill (from Witcher wiki)

How many times, as I dip my quill in the ink flask and pause in reveries, I wondered what my life would be today had I or she made a different choice at this time or that. How many of such days when a seemingly unimportant choice was made in my life, and those days, while living through them, seemed just like any other ordinary days, as the little creek that ran beside the Temple of Freya on a hot summer's day, it just ran, dutifully and unsurprisingly, making the most ordinary sound of quiet waters. Only when you stood further away, you saw that under all the ordinariness, each small turn pivoted its course into that of a great river, which flew from its humble beginning from the Temple all through Lofoten then to the sea.

That distant Winternights on the isles of Hindarsfjall when I was fifteen, was such a turn in my life, though much of it depended seemingly on pure chance. Or maybe, like Lara might say, it was Destiny.

Later, on the Continents, I found out that Winternights was celebrated by neither elves nor humans there. A festival of mysterious origin, held sacred by the Skelligers. Though the absence of Winternights on the Continents is more variance and not a true "absence" as I see it, for what is Saovine but Winternights with a different name? Forsooth, we always have more in common than not, especially in matters figurative: Winternights, or Saovine, draws the curtain between the living and the dead, the rumored tales and reality. The first night is the night of evil. 

The first night of Winternights is the departure of the force of growth, fruitfulness, and life. On this night, old Druids say the three-headed hounds of Hel roam the roads, searching to make way for Goddess Freya, and with the hounds’ howl, the gate to the Otherworld opens, allowing not only the passage of Freya but all manners of wonders and evils alike travel through worlds. Among the fairies, ice trolls, giants, rides the enemies of God Hemdall, the specter riders from the land of the End-days, the snatchers of virgins and children, the most evil of all evil, the Wild Hunt. Whoever crosses their path with these spirits from Mörhogg will meet a fate worse than death.

But for me, the first night of Winternights, like all the other solstices and equinoxes, was a night eagerly welcomed and exalted with fond memories. For tonight I would meet my Good Lady, my secret fairy friend, Lara.

Lara had a more formal name, but she told me those who were close to her -- or considered themselves close to her -- called her by Lara, and it was a name of her own making, by the Rites of Naming, a forgotten elven practice which dictates elves who passed from childhood to become a man or woman would gain a symbolic name based on their virtue or character. _Lara_ means gull in the elven tongue. 

"I like gulls," Lara said when I first asked her why she got that name. "And I have flown across oceans vaster than you can imagine."

"There were always plenty gulls fretting about at our shores by the Kambi when Mordon Unna took us beachcombing," I told her. "They combed the beach with us, picking at clams. Last year when the sea god claimed a fishing boat with three men on it, we found bits of the boat and the broken net on the beach, while the gulls," I swallowed, remembering, "the gulls picked at the bodies." 

Lara looked at me with her smiling green eyes, "Ghastly trivia you remember, silly." 

Lara liked to call me "Silly" when I was young. _My little Silly_. And she would chuckle and correct my mistakes, which I constantly made. I think I was probably always silly, especially in front of Lara, who looked almost a grown woman when I was but a child when we first met. But who was not silly in her presence? 

"The gulls do what is in their nature, Cerro," Lara said more seriously, "And to nature, the dead is just a piece that needs getting back, through whatever means came to be at that moment." 

"So the gulls did what Valkyries do to men's souls?"

"Here you go again, silly," Lara said mockingly though not unkindly, she's often like that, "Mixing the matter of physical and spiritual and dragging in gods where they don't belong, which is only in the discourse of debate, if I have it my way." 

I made the sign of Freya."You don't believe in any gods?" 

I thought she just didn't believe in the gods of the Isles. Modron told us about religions on the Continents, and I recalled a summer or harvest goddess most elves believed in.

"What's the point?" She answered with a hardness sharp like the icicles hung from wintery roofs. "Their existence or the lack of depends not on my belief or the lack of; and if indeed as some suggest that 'gods' birth and live on our imagination and worship, then I don't see why we should allow it. It is never thus that everyone at all time would think the same thing, so we would always want to have 'our own gods' -- as we do now -- and that only broods conflict."

"People need to put their minds on themselves, on each other, look inward, not give authority to imaginaries." Lara looked at me thoughtfully and I had a feeling that the focus of her speech had steered to me alone now, but I could not be sure. Elves, it seems, enjoyed chasing around in circles in speech. Maybe not only in speech.

"They will find solace in no one but in themselves." Lara added, thus concluded our discussion on the matter that day, and we moved on telling the triviality of our respective lives in each other's absence, what was still and what was new. I think that's when she told me of her engagement, and little else. She looked excited, happy, even. 

At that time, I learned of the rituals of marriage not too long ago, and was barely aware of the secrets between men and women. To me, marriage seemed a thing beautiful but far-away, and I was very curious to know what it would like, though it felt a little wrong to ask since I was training to be a priestess of Freya, not to be a man's wife. I thought maybe even just knowing too much of these "other lives" might assuage me to take other paths that would lead me astray from Freya. So I decided to be happy for her and pushed away any other feelings that were threatening to burst out from the bubbles. 

I think I was a little jealous, too. Not only of Lara, but of her unnamed fiancé, who's doubtless a Prince in my imagination since Lara was the Princess of the fairies (a fact she was ever so reluctant to admit) and doubtless loved her very much and doubtless very fair.

When Lara told me of this engagement, she said they were supposedly "destined," and I felt such slow, agonizing anxiety rose in my chest like fire ants gnawing at my skin. She was destined, I realized, with another person in another world for another life, all of which, I was deprived of; and soon, doubtless, Lara would be deprived of me as well, once she's married. I would be alone in this world -- an even smaller world that consisted of the walled gardens of Freya, walled temples, and a little corner on this island walled by the Great Sea, where others who were also walled like me, out of their own aloneness, jeered at me because I was parentless, had strange colored eyes and half-pointed ears. 

Not all were unkind, of course, and I always sat my mind out to be as pleasing as I could, so I did make friends. But my enemies used their piety as a shield and attacked me for no reason other than my different looks, which they saw as signs of warning from the Gods. Modron Unna protected me this far, but she would be gone one day, and until we were reunited in Freya's golden hall with many seats, I knew I would have to face malice in this world by myself for some years. And I didn't know what I should do. I didn't want to fling back the same malice against malice, for that was not Freya's teaching, but neither silent endurance nor kindness -- perhaps a bit too forced and not all sincerely -- stopped their evil eyes and promise of "retribution." 

Modron Unna told me to be patient. "Be like Freya's cat." She said. "Keep your gob closed, your eyes open, and bide your time. It will come." She assured me.

So I bid my time by studying simple medicines and our gods' teaching, and read vicariously whatever tomes Lara brought me each season; I had to rush sometimes, for the tomes were not always easy to understand and Lara never let me keep them: 

"They do not belong to this world. I let you read them because, well, you are not entirely..." She would say, but never finished. 

Such were those days and that was Lara, how she was to me. 

And days passed since Lara told me of her engagement, I greeted three more summers in the Temple of Freya, then came the Winternights that led my path away from the Goddess. 

Winternights begins at the last day -or more precisely the last night- of Velen, and lasts for three days. It is the end of autumn and the coming of winter, a time, for the Skellige folks, means rest from raids, gathering of the harvest, killing livestock that won’t survive the winters to make dried meat, making sacrifices to honor our Gods.

Throughout the days of Winternights, solemn rituals would be done in honor of Allfather Hemdall, Otkell the forefather of Hindarsfjall, our beloved Goddess Freya and her Valkyries. The druids from Gedyneith the sacred oak on Ard Skellig would join the priestesses for the rituals later towards dusk, where they would sacrifice livestock by the Rock Hemdall for past harvests and victories, and more to come in the following year. 

We the young priestess stood around like the other folks on the isle and watched in awe. 

I swallowed and looked down at my feet when I saw what they brought up: a frightened kid, bleating and kicking around. It was from our Temple's pen; I helped taking care of the kid and recognized it by the little patch of star-shaped mark on its head. This was the third winter I had been allowed to stay and watch the full sacrifice, yet the killing of a young animal I had helped raising unsettled me and I so wished time could pass quicker and night would fall so I could go meet Lara after we finish the night prayers. 

Sister Sigrdrifa stood beside me and probably noticed my distress. She was a few years older than me, tall and always possessed a cheerful soul, even when there seemed nothing to be cheerful about. When the little goat bleated its last as its blood dried on the grass in front of Hemdall, Sister Sigrdrifa leaned to me and said in a hushed tone.

"Times past, in hard winters when the isles were at war, they used to sacrifice people to please the Gods." 

"Young, quiet, good-looking virgins." She teased me. "This winter is sure to be a hard one; greylags and ruddy ducks flew southward not even a month past Velen. And just this morning, I saw ants marched in straight lines. Everyone knows if ants marched straight in the winter folks would be losing weight."

I sniggered at her last words, "Everyone? I must have had my ears full of Freya's lessons when the ants were auguring." Though I thought the part of the migratory birds probably had truth in it. "But what about the bits of war? Hindarsfjall hasn't picked fights with anyone for years." If the little raids here and there were not counted; but as "everyone knew," raids were islander's honest work, no one took unnecessary offense in that.

Sigrdrifa fidgeted a little uneasily and lowered her voice into a whisper as Modron Unna stood back, letting the druids work their charms over the blood-soaked ground. 

"Hindarsfjall don't pick fights with others, but there are some who want to pick fights with us." 

I looked at Sigrdrifa wide-eyed, "This is not a matter to be made fun of."

"Did you hear something?" I asked.

"Only talks. But a few women from Lofoten prayed for Freya's protection on their sons and husbands should a battle be brought here."

We both made a sign of Freya.

"But who would want to attack us?"

In truth, our raids were never the greatest among the other isles, and they were most often directed to the Continents. Unlike some other clans who raided their kins.

Then it occurred to me. 

"The rouges of Drummond?" 

Sigrdrifa nodded and we both spat to avert bad luck for uttering such a foul name. 

"But I heard good news, too." She comforted me, "Modron said the druids from Ard Skellig brought messages from Jarl Hellgi an Craite, there are talks of an alliance. Maybe he'll marry one of our jarl's daughters and send his famous axemen to join our warriors."

That did convince my heart to calm down a bit, for I had spotted some of the men that accompanied the druids wore an Craite's red and black, and there were a notable number of shields painted of three ships compared to the other clan's shields. 

I also spotted a few shields that had the three heads of fish hawks; clan Drummond's shield. 

Hindarsfjall was famous for the great Temple of Freya, so on holy days such as Winternights, all clans would send their men to pay some homage on their Jarl's behalf. The Jarls themselves would be responsible for holding Small Sacrifice as the heads of their households. Drummond was never one so pious as Heymaey, but in past years I remembered seeing more shields than this year’s.

Tradesmen and travelers brought ominous tales about the new Jarl of Drummond and I wondered if that was a reason why the hostility between Drummond and Heymaey grew: they said the Jarl of Drummond, Knut was his name, a famous Vildkaarl, was a secret worshipper of Svalblod. 

I shuddered at the thought of the dark God. 

Svalblod was once received as an honored guest in the feasting hall of Hemdall to dine with his beloved Heulyn and their children, where he first accused Heulyn of adultery, then insulted Tyr by calling him a coward when Tyr defended his mother's reputation. When the servant girl Idunna brought them apples and mead to the table, Svalblod said Idunna had given him alone apples sour and unmellowed, thus flew into a rage and killed her at his host's feast hall, bringing ill omen for his host who respected the Law of Hospitality. To punish Svalblod's crimes, Grymmdjarr tied him with his fire-forged chains while Heulyn cast a spell that turned him into a bear. "A foul beast's heart burrows under your skin, now all who looks at you sees you for what you truly are." Ever since then, Svalblod has been biding his time until Ragh nar Roog, tempting weak-willed men to do evil.

Men like these tall dark strangers from clan Drummond, who now led by a Jarl placing his faith in a corrupted God. 

When the rituals were sealed, everyone was returning to the Temple to offer a final prayer and farewell to Freya before she went on her way to her lover Goddess Hel. Two Drummond warriors leered at us as we passed the scores of warriors by and whispered something to themselves. I saw one made a lewd gesture behind his shield towards me and felt my face grew hot, I think, with rage; and I spat towards them.

It was meant to be a small display of defiance and contempt as well as to ward off the evil invoked by his gesture, but my mistake was I was too angry and perhaps too inexperienced for, as a priestess, I had not been offended in this way before, and my aim too true. My spit landed on the warrior's shield. 

A warrior serving a Lord carried his shield in his Lord's honor and a spit on the shield unquestionably wounded that honor, doubly in my case since I was only a young girl. The warrior's lank face grew red with rage and his companion tried hard to hold him down; wounded honor or not, he cannot do anything do me there and then, for I was still part of Freya's Temple, and he a guest on that day in Freya's worshipper's land. They looked on darkly as Sister Sigrdrifa put her one arm around me and huddled me homewards. I felt their forboding speculative looks long on my back.

The warriors from all six clans each took their turns to pay their respect in front of the Goddess, everyone went on their knees and prayed, except I noticed those four warriors from Drummond nearly mutter any words when they kneeled and hurried the whole affair over quickly. 

"I suppose those rumors about their Jarl are true then." I whispered to Sister Sigrdrifa as we stood together on the back row of the hall, among the other Sisters. 

She made a sign of Freya, then another of Hemdall. 

"Troubles are brewing. May Hemdall watch over us and give our warriors strength in Freya's absence."

That night we dined in the great hall with several guests, all the warriors had gone to the tavern in Lofoten. It's best that way, Modron Unna said, "Or the next day when they pissed away their heads clear some of them will have to cut their tounges out for offending the Goddess."

I did not tell her about the incident that happened after the sacrifice. Even though it felt good showing that brute, and even though I didn't want to admit, the dark look on his face scared me. I didn't want to worry Modron, I knew it would put her in a hard place, as the vulgar insults on a priestess of Freya would make her furious and in principle she should demand reparation, but my spiting on a Jarl's shield put us up the creek without a paddle: if I were any village girls, I could have my tongue cut out or be put to death for offending a Jarl like that, but I was insulted first as a priestess of Freya, a Goddess commanded reverence, supposedly, from all Skelligers. Reprimanding me would mean the Goddess's authority be put under a Jarl’s, but if I was to be without any punishment it might attract talks of "risky precedents that jeopardize Jarls and Kings' jurisdiction." So I decided to keep silent and hoped things will pass. The warriors were due leaving tomorrow with the druids, after all. And I hoped the night’s drinking would make them forget what had happened.

We had a great number of dishes that night, for the guests. No travelers were welcomed on Winternights as the custom demanded all to bar their homes before sun down refuse anyone who asks for lodging, in case disguised dark fairies come and make mischief. So the Temple was the only place a tradesman or traveling bard might take residence, aside from the great tavern in Lofoten, whose host clearly valued coin more dearly than the old traditions and regarded the custom as superstitions. But I suppose we can’t hold taverns or bathhouses to this rule too closely, besides, they did not offer lodging; it wouldn’t be their fault that the warriors fell asleep wherever they could eventually as a result of the ale they drank. Unintended consequence is all. 

So to welcome the guest and to celebrate Winternights, instead of the usual barley gruel with ale, we had a stew of hare, honeyed chicken, buttered carrots and beans on sweet grass sprinkled with pine nuts. And the mulled wine spiked with cinnamon and ginger lightened my head as well as my mood.

We only served gold mead at the most special occasion, and though I was not sure which one was more valued in Skellige, wine or mead, I knew for sure wine was a scarcity unlike beer or ale. Some guest from An Skellig brought it as a gift for the Temple, for affording him lodge and food tonight.

"And entertain me with magnificent stories of Freya, glory be Her name." I heard him saying to Modron Unna. 

"You are the skald. Svangeir the Golden Lips, is it?" Modron lifted her cup, "I heard about you. Talented in songs as well as in the swordskill. Drink to the hospitality of the Goddess, noble guest Svangeir, and pray, return the gifts bestowed on you by weaving these stories into one of your beautiful ballads and cast it across the Great Sea."

They drank, the skald put down his cup and I saw tiny drops of red wine shining gold in his short braided beards. He had a long face, strong jaw, soft brown eyes and straw-colored hair cropped short above his ears. There was one unruly strand of hair that stood out from the back of his head stubbornly, for some reason I was fixated on that lock, as it jigged and jogged with the movement of his head, his face animated in conversation in this smoke-danced hall. 

He noticed my look and smiled at me, it was a genuine smile, of kind interest; and I didn't know why, instead of returning the smile, I turned and ran away.

I smiled into the cooly nightfall.

And I went to meet Lara, who was waiting for me at Rock Kambi by the sea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used many norse mythology and old practices in this chapter, but kept the names either a bit different or in the most "English" way for easy understanding, but if there's some term i just left out there without ever explaining and it's causing confusion, please feel free to drop a comment :)  
> Thank ♥


	4. A Wolf in Nahaleni’s Cloak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A beautiful start of an evening as Cerro went to meet Lara, soon overshadowed with strange events.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nehaleni: from witcher wiki, is goddess of various aspects of luck and fate, thus including divinations, sooth, dreams and journey. She seemed to have been based off Nehalennia, a pagan goddess of perhaps Germanic or Celtic origin, she is most likely associated with sea-related tradings, and maybe with horticulture and fertility. Inscriptions with her often have her with hounds sitting by her side. I don’t think she’s much related to concealment in real life, but it’s a fun thing to use from the Witcher lore.  
> And at one point, it might seem like even the Wild Hunt might appear, alas it’s not to be. I don’t think I’m prepared for that (yet?).  
> And there’s a little nod to a dear friend who writes a wonderful Lara fic. 
> 
> TW: there is some attempted sexual assault, if you do not wish to read it, please stop at “Wolves got her.” And resume at “Freya gave me strength.”

The moon was scarcely on the rise when I sneaked out of the Temple through the little door by our vegetable garden. All along my way to the sea, through the fissures of half-bared branches of birches and aspens, silver light erupted, illumining the leaves that covered the frosted earth. Fallen leaves crumpled under my feet with brisk sound, and I remembered how I always took so much delight in stomping leaves until they were a mess of powdery brown when I was a child. Modron Unna chided me occasionally, but most times she just smiled. 

How I loved Autumn.

I reached Rock Kambi before the moon was halfway to its height. And I was so delighted at the sight I just started running.

“Lara!” I shouted. 

Lara was waiting for me. I hoped she had not waited too long. It was a cold night and I recalled her ill humor that followed a few times in the past when I kept her waiting too long.

_"Time, a fickle little thing isn't it? Almost too trifling to keep track of."_ A wry smile, a sidelong glance. _"It's no matter, Cerro. I understand. For, you know, I too have a tight schedule. All those worlds won't discover themselves, would they? What are some tomes that contain the knowledge of generations? What is some very unimportant lesson and meeting to attend, when you can simply sit by a rock and listen to the gulls squeak? Here you are, yet again teaching me to appreciate life to its fullest. How do I thank you."_

Oh Lara.

She had her back to me and was gazing past the sea, salty breeze gently tugged at her fair hair, under the rising moon they were adorned a shimmering silver. 

Despite the full moon, a thin fairish mist hung over the sea that lapped almost furiously against the boulders upon which Rock Kambi stood, Lara stood in the shadow cast by the giant rock. She turned around, and I was once again captured by the alienness of her sheer beauty. 

They sing songs about Lara these days, of her magic powers and of the tragic love story and the bards, never could resist comparing her to _a summer’s day_. But these bards have not met her; they compose her image weaved out of romantic prattles. 

Make no mistake, Lara was beautiful. With her lustrous golden hair that often held up with a thin circlet crown made of glassy material, her dress -- every time a different one -- of fabrics so very fine and light and their cuts and trims so impossibly intricate that even the most skillful dressmaker on the isles would have to rack their brain to even imagine how it was done, and the lavishly detailed mantles were only accessory to her fine-boned body and its graceful carriage. And I am not saying that her handsome high cheekbones or her rosy full lips did not tantalize every men's dreams, but it was not a delicate loveliness. Her true beauty, radiated from those emerald green eyes. I remember how strange they were to me the first time I saw them. _I could never understand what's in those eyes_ , I had thought it back then, with a child's clarity. _Just as I could never understand a cat or a seal. But I will love them._

Those eyes would speak to you as though it had been ever since the weaning of time, they spoke a language no mouth could utter yet all you needed to understand was to open your soul. But of course, it is always easier to stay closed than to be open. You would think by doing that, you risk hurting yourself, or losing yourself. 

When her eyes fixed their light on you, the sun dulled in comparison. To _men_ , I think, in their heads her eyes had this power that almost cruelly invited them to play a game with destiny. When they saw her eyes, they thought they heard promises amidst the blood pounding in their ears; they thought if they could conquer _those eyes_ , they could conquer destiny.

Lara's beauty was a hard beauty, not more nor less than life itself. She could point a clear path to the lost, make the wretched happy, and the ugly grew beautiful in the hope for her grace. When she felt like doing it, she could do all that. But she did not always feel like doing it; she shone her light freely on those she deemed worthy, but others she dismissed in the dark. 

So some men and women withered away with their self-perceived inferiority, in spite of whether they wanted to admit even to themselves. They grew darker under this dazzling light and became jealous of her shining image. 

But on that autumn eve, under a ring of shadow cast by the sacred stone, Lara’s hard beauty seemed to have melted into the silvery moonlight, even her ever-spirited green eyes appeared gentle.

“Sorry I came late.” I reached her, a little breathless.

Lara smiled. As usual, I felt wonderful when she addressed her smile to me, but I noticed something different, her face was a heaven clouded. And then, with shock, I saw tears in her eyes. 

“What’s wrong?” I blurted out, ready to do anything that would sweep those tears away.

Lara shook her head gently and her tears fell. They slowly glided down her ivory cheeks, shinning; leaving two hideous pieces of evidence that told her sorrow.

I touched her hand, tears suddenly welling up in my own eyes, “You can tell me anything,” I said hurriedly, “I will do everything I can to help you. You know that."

At this Lara smiled again, another tear fell, she spoke, her voice bright but gentle like tonight’s moonlight, “Nothing you can do that will help me, silly.”

I admit those words did hurt my youthful pride. I let my hand drop.

“But now I know you would,” to my surprise, Lara held up my hands in hers, almost hurriedly — she never hurried. Almost never.

“I know you would help me,” She repeated, “and that does help me in other ways,” she smiled sadly, “though it does not help this matter that requested my tears; but then, no one could help with that.”

“Will you tell me what happened?” I asked again while we sat by Kambi. The grass underneath should be cold and wet with night dew, but it wasn’t; Lara must have used a spell while she was waiting.

She sighed and looked at me, as if weighing, then she decided. 

“It’s the matter of the heart.” She said, then added, “At least, for tonight, it is only that.”

"Once a word is given, it ought to be kept." She sighed. I waited for her to say more, but she just stayed silent.

After a while, she touched her tears away and turned to look at me, “I need to -- I'm going to stay _here_ for some time,” She said, “and I do mean _for_ _some time_.”

She looked at me with a strange seriousness in her eyes, “Cerro, there's somewhere I want to go and some answers I must seek. Will you stay by my side?”

I blinked, overwhelmed, perhaps, for such trust and honor being thrust upon me: me, a Temple-raised orphan girl, haven’t even seen my sixteenth winters yet, being asked to be the companion of an elven princess, who, though not so much older than me relatively speaking, has seen Samhain’s smoke rose and fell nearly a hundred times in her realm. She who possessed so much beauty, so much grace, so much knowledge and commanded so much awe and respect and admiration from me all these years as I grew up, now asked me to stay by her side?

“Of course I would!.” I shouted almost with indignation.

“‘Till Time’s end?” 

The tear streaks on her cheeks started to dry and I saw the old spark of glee returning in her green eyes.

“”Till time’s end.” I drawled, “I asked you that four years ago, after Beltane, and you said you’d always be here for me ‘till time’s end,’ remember?”

She smiled, “Even to the edge of the world?”

That was new.

“Yes? But what are you going to do at the edge of the world?” I replied, “Or is that another of your ‘figure of speech?’”

“No, not this one. Actually, perhaps it is. But I am talking about a place in the east, you people call it ‘The Edge of the World,’” Lara said, making herself more comfortable by leaning back against Kambi, “Naturally, I assume you remember from _Ars_ _Naturalis Historia_ that the world — even this one — is much large than that.”

“Right.” I lied.

We sat in comfortable silence for a while. A windless night it was, around us, only the sound of the churning sea, forever charging and retreating from the stacks of rocks that formed this cliff. The purple of Wolfsbane and deep red of cockscomb seemed to have faded into a dream. Yet if it were a dream then the moon — now high at the mid of sky — made it too bright to be able to grow hazy in the morning.

_This is real._ I thought. _I would not have to wait for another season to see my fairy again, and now that she asked me to be by her side, I was truly her friend._

I smiled. 

It was the Winternights of 1134, dark rumors of a Jarl whose clan had a feud with ours circulated among the isles, hostility grew and a war involving three or even more clans might be coming, I had unintentionally offended a lout who carried the shield of that corrupted worshipper of a Jarl, and I had never been prouder and happier in my life. For in my mind, Lara had accepted me to be her friend.

We talked a short while, I told her what occurred today at the sacrifice and why I could not tell Modron Unna about the Drummond warrior who still unsettled me, and I was hoping Lara would tell me it was nothing, I was silly for giving a small thing much too thought, but she frowned with concern.

“You say they are returning to their own lands tomorrow?” She asked. 

“Yes, once the sun warms up the ship’s sides.”

She nodded and relaxed her brows in a quick arch and down.

“Let us hope the booze does it job well. At this point, these ‘warriors’ are probably deep in sleep under the tables. And tomorrow they’d have some serious headache to deal with; they’d have no time for yesterday’s slight.”

“Why are men such emotional fools?” She sighed. I shrugged.

“Are you going back to get your things?” I asked.

“No.” She said curtly. Almost harshly. Then she breathed in, and closed her eyes. After a moment, she said, “I’m not going back to get anything. Can I stay with you, Cerro? Just for a few days, until I draw a plan for reaching this ‘Edge of the World.’”

“You can,” I nodded eagerly, “I’m sure Modron Unna would welcome you in the Temple. She always liked elves for their knowledge. I’m sure she would like to talk to you about a great deal of things.”

She smiled wryly, “Would she now? I suppose I could try to see what knowledge I can offer that will interest her without offending her.”

I made a show of fainting and put up my hands, “Just not a word of those godless heresies, you Fairy Sorceress.”

We both laughed, and the laughter brought me a small yawn.

“It’s getting late,” I said, pulling my thin cloak tighter around my arms,“Cold, too.”

“You should go back.”

“What about you?” 

“Ah, the moon is beautiful and the air fresh. I think a bit of quiet contemplation will do me good after some emotional turmoil I just had, don’t you?” She smiled, but underneath that smile, I feared the sorrow threatened to return.

“Are you sure?” 

_Are you sure you want to be alone, now, of all times?_ I had wanted to ask that, to ask what was the matter, if this had anything to do with her fairy beloved — or, once beloved and destined; but I didn’t. Too aware of how fresh and young this friendship was, perhaps, and worried such trust just gained would be tarnished by excessive curiosity.

“I’m sure.” She put on a brighter smile to reassure me, “Now go. Get some good sleep and tomorrow after your prayers I would already be in the temple, paying respect to your Goddess and the High Priestess.”

“Thanks, too” She murmured, “I suppose I should thank her for taking good care of you. Maybe I would arrange a gift.”

I was going to ask about the gift but she pulled me up from where we were leaning against Kambi and bade me on my way.

The way back to the Temple was just as bright if not brighter, for the full moon was at its zenith and watched on me through tree branches, while I tiptoed around the interlocked patterns their shadow pitched on the ground. The ground was battered hard as iron by the chilling air. 

The path through the woods was clear and unbarred with generous moonlight, but it took me much longer to walk back. I was suspicious of the encircled shadows and constantly touching my necklace of Freya's rune which was made of iron blessed in the Temple, and I made the sign of Freya a few times when I saw something moved in the thicket far ahead. I did not stop walking, of course; it would be better if I get back inside the protective walls of the Temple as soon as possible, but my wariness slowed me down. 

By the hour of the wolf, I reckoned from the sloping angle of the moon, I was past the three-way crossroads that forked towards Lofoten in the opposite direction of the Temple. It was the darkest hour of the night, I could barely make out the shapes of trees, bushes, stacks of rocks; or perhaps something else. And I thought I could hear all kinds of menacing whispers that mocked my senses and the dropping temperature made me hold my cloak tighter around my body. But no matter how tight I clutched at the worn woolen cloak, I could not stop the shiver. I was beginning to regret not having pleaded Lara to accompany me.

Then I heard the voices. 

Not the shadow-voices perhaps from the Otherworld -- bless be Her Name -- but the voices of men; indistinct murmurs coming closer and closer from the other side of the path. 

At first I thought they were some warriors half-jammed with ale, having had their fill at Lofoten's tavern, now staggering on their way back to their camp. 

Not all warriors went to get drunk, many stayed and made quick camps close to the Temple's woods, I saw and had to be very careful to hide myself from their scattered doleful campfires on my way to see Lara; to avoid questions. Now I wondered if I should ask them to see me back in the Temple. Maybe I could say I went to add my own offering to the Gods at Rock Hemdall. 

As I was fighting over my guilt to make up this lie -- and thinking how to make the lie sound most natural, the two figures came closer as I walked on the forked path, and in the pale moonlight, I saw with dread those men wore the purple of clan Drummond. But it was too late. They saw me too, and doubtless the moonlight had given me dead away. One of the better-dressed warriors with a wicked insolence on his face suddenly yelled, a blaze of recognition shone in his black eyes. His companion tapped his arm as though in question, and he said, "It is that little vixen! I will not forget those evil eyes even in the Underworld!" And they strutted over towards me. 

"I will teach you for spitting on my da's shield!" The dark-eyed gritted his teeth.

I felt my feet were frozen too; stuck to the damp, hard ground, while my mind struggled to decide what to do. And for a mad second, I imagined standing my ground and fight: like I said, a mad second. I had no training in swordskill, no weapon. If I stayed to fight, it would be like little kittens hissing at wild boars. But then, cats don't do things like that. They hunt mice and birds, sure, but when there's a mad dog, they are gone before any bothers to take notice. 

So, like a cat, I ran. I turned back and ran along the way back towards the sea, to Rock Kambi. 

I had liked to think myself a pious priestess, a good believer of Freya, but for some reason, on that night, as it turned out my soul placed more faith not on the Goddess and her temple ground's protection, but on Lara. Perhaps it was the slight difference in the distance between the Drummond warriors and the path to the Temple, perhaps I just thought the wilder path might shield me better with its shrubs and branches sticking out everywhere, or perhaps deep in my mind I really did believe Lara was the best refuge. Who knows. At that moment, I just ran. 

I ran with an abandon fueled by a kind of primordial apprehension in my veins. I was a cat, a hare, a dear, being chased by something equally animalistic, and when the chase was done, it would be my death. And worse. 

I was astonished how fast I could run and how little I felt the pain inflicted by the thorny branches on my heels and legs. I heard nothing besides the heavy steps of those two hunting behind me and I saw nothing but one more opening hiding among trees after another. I thought such fear would turn my legs into porridge and the next I know they would have caught me, but it didn't, and I kept running on.

I thought, if I had put a little more distance between me and my pursers, I could use that little time to climb up a tree and I would be much safer on top. I often climbed the pear tree at the Temple to get those fruits on the crown; I was quite good with it. If I reached the top, I could shout and my voice would reach further; on the ground it can only be carried so far before being muffled by the leaves and disappear bouncing around tree trunks.

But my heart was beating so loud and I found it hard to guess just by the sound of running steps how far they were behind me, so I turned my head and looked, and that was my mistake. For not paying attention to the front, my running body rushed into a hawthorn shrub. 

I could not feel the pain then, but later I saw what hawthorn's sharp leaves and unforgiving twigs did to my thighs and my sides, not to say, my already-burdened old cloak.

My luck was at its end. _My life, too_ , I thought as I tried vainly to scramble to my feet, but my legs, like a string wrung too tight under the nervous fingers of an inexperienced harpist risk breaking under the pressure, they would not respond to my will. I cursed desperately and gripped my iron necklace tight as the dark warrior approached me.

"Fenrir." His companion mumbled the word and the dark-eyed warrior stopped to look at his companion. I supposed that was his name. 

"Priestess." His companion croaked. 

It was a very unpleasant sound. Not the voice, but something I could not quite make sense of made it sound unnatural. The hoarse strange voice added more horrid to the nightmare. 

The dark-eyed warrior waved his hand, "It's no matter, Laars. It's a dark night according to those sheep worshippers, innit? What's this little vixen doing out here in the woods?" His shadow stepped on me. 

"Perhaps she's cohooting with evil spirits? Such wrongdoings always bring ill on its doer."

He towered over me and stank. Ale, sweat, and something else. 

"Wolves got her." He said in a statement, his companion shrugged and stopped, leaning to a tree. His shadow seemed to have grown into one with the tree's black and twisted roots.

The man called Fenrir loomed over me and my struggling must have amused him. 

"You can keep those legs close, you little witch." He spat on my face. "I like them lying on the ground." Then he laughed, flashing his teeth at his companion who leaned by the tree, looking with mild interest. 

And in one impossible moment, my desperate fear was transformed into a rage stoked with disgust and hatred, and my legs found their strength again. I did not know how, there were cuts deep to the thigh and I was bleeding myself more copiously by standing up. I should have run away again, taking them by surprise. But I didn't. I was taken over by this stupid rush of anger that would have cost my life.

I flung my iron necklace across Fenrir's face with all the strength I could muster and the sharp tip that formed the triangle of the rune slashed from below his left eye. He howled. It was unnatural; a pained animal's frenzied cry. 

I did not wait to check where exactly I hurt him and ran. That cry had brought some senses back to my head as well as fear. Or maybe it was the fear that gave back my sense? 

I ran, heedless and breathless this time, not even knowing where I was running to. _Away_. I thought. Anywhere but here.

I did not run far at all. He grabbed my braid, pulled and jerked me back, so violently that I screamed. Not whimpered, not yelped, screamed. I did not know I had that voice in me. I did not know I had that voice in me especially then. I thought all the terror and the running had taken both my breath and my voice, and my soul would freeze in helpless fright when my body be put in torture. But, as it was, I still had that voice in me. So I screamed again, my voice was a long and shrill shriek of horror. I cursed the dark warrior from his roguish clan, I cursed his heathen worship and I cursed his name to be taken from this world and send to rot in Hel's Realm.

"You came here as the guest of Freya, you dare insult her priestess twice," I flung my words back to him while struggling to wrench myself free, but my effort was futile and his iron grip on my hair only tightened. 

"You who offend She The Mother Of All will have your soul crushed by the lightning of Grymmdjarr, you will rot in the freezing hell, never to be received in Freya's Hall!" I cursed him again; it might be the last thing I do, for what it was worth, I wanted to fill his rotten heart with fear of his afterlife, that is, the prospect of not having one at all. 

All who believed in Freya knew, when we die we would be reunited with our friends and foes alike again, and all shall feast together in Mother Freya's Golden Hall with Many Seats until the end of time. All, aside from oath-breakers who swore an oath to a King, a Jarl, or a warlord; warriors cut down from behind while fleeing or died without a weapon in his hand; a wife knowingly cheated on his man; those committed patricides; and those who affronted the Gods. 

If Fenrir was to have my body and my life, I thought I would take this comfort of knowing his soul would never reach Freya's Hall, but to drift endlessly in a cold eternity.

But he just laughed, such wicked relish was in that laughter, and he dragged me backward by my hair. 

"My soul has naught to do with your Witch, girl." He spat, "That loathsome old Witch Freya," he made a strange sign with his free hand, "She has no power on me. Svalblod's blood runs in my veins now, and soon He will see how we sack this puny isle, we will share those witch Sisters of yours, burn your garden, and make a fine cup for Svalblod of your high witch's skull!"

"Svalblod was struck down by Hemdall!"I screamed, "And he will strike you down as he did with your false god!" 

At this, he bawled in rage and hit me across the head, the blow was so hard I was suddenly plunged into blackness, and my right ear rang as though someone blew a horn beside my head. I felt the hard frozen ground on my face and smelled the rusty scent of blood. I groveled, still trying to move away. Faintly I thought I heard him growl.

"Squirm, witch," His voice sounded far away, "It will be the last you use those limbs. I am feeling hungry tonight in more ways than you can think."

I did not know when exactly the mist came, nor where they came. It could have happened when I was spitting and cursing, my sole focus was to be free of Fenrir's grasp, I did not notice since when it got even quieter in the woods, nor when the air grew moist, numbing, our breath left traces of white fog. Perhaps it happened all at once. For when I regained my vision, I saw a fog dense as though a blizzard was happening. I grabbed around and felt a sturdy thorny branch of some thrushes, I grabbed it and hauled myself halfway up. I wiped away the blood that was trickling down my eyes and thought he had maybe broken my eye socket, but it was just a cut on my head from his warrior's rings. 

It was so eerily quiet. It was my chance to run away, but I knew I did not have the strength, and I was afraid to make too much noise that might give away my location, so I crawled slowly on fours. To where? I wasn't sure. The fog was growing thicker. Perhaps it was Freya, for this cannot be a natural fog. I had seen nothing like this before. It was as though Freya's handmaiden Nehaleni, ever timid, spread her cloak of concealment to help those who wished to be unseen. I crawled under the magical protection away from where I heard the warrior's heavy breathes. 

"Is this your trick? Witch!" I heard him shouting, and the rustling of his clothes as he spun around. I heard steps, the other warrior seemed to have come over to his companion as well. But the sound of steps ruffled no closer to me.

Then my luck seemed to have turned a second time.

As I crawled underneath a chestnut tree, I tried to move as slowly and cautiously as possible, but the fog seemed to get denser and denser, I was on my knees and I could barely see my own hands moving. As they moved, they found their weight on the sharp tips of the cupules that held chestnuts inside and I gave a small cry before I could bite my tongue. 

"I heard you! Witch! Your foul sorcery will not save you!" His step moved and I dared not make a sound.

All the while it grew colder, I felt my sweat turning to frost. 

It was then, a figure appeared. 

I did not see her first for I was shivering in cold and the hope Fenrir would lose his way in this thick fog, I heard his unsure steps closer and closer and smelt his stench, then it stopped abruptly, like stopping in the middle of a frozen lake when you thought you heard a crack under your feet.

"Who goes there?" His voice betrayed a tremble.

I looked up. In the fog that swallowed the woods, the power of the night's fullmoon waned, all around us, was a suffocating murky grey. And in that looming grey, a noise. At first it was faint, then it grew louder. It was a tapping sound, like sticks tapping on stone floors. 

_No, not quite._ I thought. _I have heard of it somewhere; but where?_

The monotonous tapping drew closer.

Then the memory was back to me. I remembered where I had heard of this sound. It was the sound old druids made by beating two human leg bones together when the old Jarl died and they performed a goddance to send his noble soul to Freya's hall. 

I did not know what I feared more then; Fenrir or this sound from the Otherworlds. How much fear could one cramp into such a short night. But I did not make a sound, as I watched, emerged from the fog a horror magnificent beyond all words. 

The unvarying tapping noise was made by a horse on stiff legs; or what was once a horse and its legs. Its mane hung lank against sagged skin, pale as milk, and where the eyes should be, only two empty sockets. No smell of decay. It was as though the "horse" was born like that; maybe it was. A death-horse for the Goddess Hel, the Goddess of Death. And Hel herself looked every bit terrifying and ravishing as in the tales of Gods: she wore a ghost armor of bleached white and her face even paler than her armor. When you looked at her it seemed as if her face was shifting between flesh and bones. Her hair was matted, disheveled, uneven cuts snagging in all directions, onyx black. The only thing that shone against that black night was her eyes.

A cold, lifeless, unnatural-- almost unreal -- ghost fire of green. The glow of green shot through the darkened magical fog, and moved towards us. 

"Witch," Fenrir found his voice again, though now it wavered and cracked, "Stop! It's just sorcery! Smoke in the eyes. Nothing but tricks!" I heard a whooshing sound, he has drawn his weapon. "Come no further!" He yelled shrilly. 

And the glows stopped. I thought I caught a strange familiar gleam, only for a moment. 

The Goddess hissed. It was like hearing the high-pitched ringing whisper of air chafing against air, the fracture of ice on a winter lake, the sound of an animal on its dying breath. And when she spoke it was a language no one understood, her voice was so horrible I covered my ears. 

She pointed a bony finger at Fenrir, and the menacing warrior suddenly dropped his pretense of courage and ran away. I heard his maddened steps and the heavy sound of thumping and crushing into trees.

The Goddess of Hel raised one finger up, a thin blue light lifted several rocks into the air, she paused briefly as if in thought, then decided, and flickered her fingers violently forward. The rocks shot out straight forward, blanketed by blue light. As they flew something crackled, making a hideous sound of bones cluttering and clanking, without stopping, in the pulsating light, I saw with my own unbelieving eyes the rocks pulled and twisted and grew, and before they reached the ground the stones became dread wolfs with fiery eyes. They ran after Fenrir. 

I let go of my breath, I thought I was going to faint, for I saw the greenish shine of the ghost fire advance towards me. Somewhere in the distance, a shriek echoed through the fog-trapped woods, followed by the revolting sounds of flesh being torn apart with fangs. Howls of the undead wolves pierced the fog like sharp icicles. 

I tried to move backwards, only to fall because my strength was at least at its end. 

And the green-eyed Goddess of Death rushed to my side. 

"Cerro!" She cried out in a hushed tone. 

Then I saw the green eyes of this Goddess of Death were not the green of ghost fires, but the green of bright spring grass; the coal-black of her matted hair smoothed and peeled off and underneath it was a beautiful pale gold, her ever-shifting bony features softened, solidified into a face I knew so well, a face of bright beauty now marred by worry. 

"Lara." I whispered her name and passed out in the cold wet fog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I learned my lessons from the last update that I should not promise my readers nor myself more than I could do, aka updating as many chapters as I thought I could finish writing and editing simply because I thought I figured out that few bits of plot. Not much point to set deadlines if all it brings is shame on myself :P  
> And to go with that, sadly, this Thanksgiving I had my pet died, my partner had one of her aunt passed on due to cancer (I’m thankful at least it’s not a disease that would prevent her from seeing her families before she died). I did not know her well because we didn’t speak the same language, nor was my partner, but she seemed to have been very kind to many of his families and friends and advocated for girls’ education, and his dad was devastated. It is a sad winter. I hope life finds others well and I will update soon.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this:) As always, kudos are love and comments are life.  
> Feel free to shoot me a msg on Tumblr (herbalina-of-yesteryear) if you want to talk about some headcanons, I’ll reply asap.


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